I’m about to rush out of the royal bed chamber, when Aiko suddenly catches me by the sleeve.

“Reece, wait!”

“Theres’s no time. We need to find a way back to Brookrun!”

My mind is a flutter with the impossibility of traveling there in an instant. Gilly is back there and there’s no way for us to communicate with her to come and bring us back. But we’re days away. My hopes evaporate into frustration. There were only minutes left. Brookrun is going to fall.

“They’re all going to die,” I say vacantly. “I messed up, Aiko. I should have never brought us here. Braxus is storming the town and there’s no way we can get back in time.”

“Will you snap out of it,” Aiko says. “Of course there’s a way.”

I look up at her. “How?”

She rolls her eyes. “Seriously? Just because I choose to play a few select classes doesn’t mean I don’t have all of them leveled. I keep telling you guys this. I’ve been here for 10 years, remember?”

“You have Teleport?” I ask.

“Duh,” she says and my heart lifts so high I could almost kiss her again.

“Come on then!” I say. “Change and then get us home quick! We need to try and stop him.”

“Wait,” Aiko says. “Didn’t you say he was more powerful now?”

“Yes. Very. He’s Level 99 already and on top of that he’s four times as powerful as we thought him to be.” I spend a few moments to recount in detail what had happened. “He killed me with a word, Aiko. A word.”

“That sounds like a new ultimate ability or something. How the heck are we supposed to defend against that?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s a death save involved or something. My log did register I had failed to resist. But I was at half stats too, so who knows.”

Aiko taps her chin as she look up at the chandelier. “Look, we’re no worse off. We got the outcome we were shooting for anyway, right? We got Braxus out in the open in his true form. Now we just need to kill him.”

“I don’t think that’s going to be as easy as we thought. He can super power his whole army now as well.”

“I think I have an idea,” Aiko says. “But we’ll need to take a little detour before teleporting home.”

“A detour? We don’t have time for that!”

“Trust me,” Aiko says. “If I know Braxus. I think this will be worth it.”

* * *

I count the seconds in my head as we shoot across the city via rooftop. It becomes apparent where we are headed and I get a tremendous sense of deja vu.

“We’re going back to the jail?” I say.

“Not the jail,” she says. “The Garrison and Braxus’ loot stash. If he’s already Level 99 and has been leveling like I think he has, he’s bound to have come across rare items that we can probably use.”

“What do you mean?”

“His class doesn’t make use of many combat abilities. He instead uses his army to kill for him. That probably explains how he leveled to 99 so fast too. While we were killing single monster he was probably taking out whole dungeons. Which means there’s a good chance he came across some pretty good items that he won’t ever use.”

My ears perk up at that.

“Most times,” she continues. “When he’d find weapons and armor and such, he just hoards them in his stash. All his power comes from his army so the rare items and relics he gets, he simply treats like trophies. The same he does the people he collects too. The sick freak.”

“So you’re saying he might have a bunch of rare, high level items in there from grinding dungeons to level 99?”

Aiko looks over her shoulder and grins at me. “Only one way to find out.”

We descend into the garrison and mow through the handful of guards posted outside the gate like they were level one goblins. I don’t even see their faces as they release their death cries. It’s a strange returning to the beginning for me. When I was here last, I was a soft hearted kid that couldn’t bring himself to ending a life. That softness had led to me sparing Braxus and sparking this entire mess. But this world has hardened me now and the men before me are simply obstacles to my greater objective. Still I’m not a complete monster like Braxus.

“If you all don’t want to die like your comrades,” I shout to the remaining guards within the garrison. “Then clear the hell out of here. Right now!”

Skill up!

Your Oratory skill increases by 0.4!

I don’t have to speak twice. The guards scramble out of out the garrison like it’s on fire and then Aiko and I make our way into the sealed treasure trove deep within the main vault. Aiko expertly picks the lock and when I walk through the doors I can’t believe what I’m seeing. It looks like a department store from back in New London. There are shelves and racks filled with armor and weapons, magic items, accessories.

Aiko is already rummaging through the stuff. “Grab what you can. Get stuff for everyone else too if you can find it.”

We have mere minutes to get back and save everyone. I pop a haste spell and go on the biggest shopping spree of my life.